Star Trek collectively refers to six
science fiction television series spanning 726 episodes, ten motion
pictures, and hundreds of novels, video games, and other works of fiction
all set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the
early- to mid-1960s. It depicts an optimistic future in which humankind has
overcome sickness, racism, poverty, intolerance, and warfare on Earth; the
central characters explore the galaxy, finding new worlds and meeting new
civilizations, while helping to spread peace and understanding. Star Trek
is one of the most popular names in the history of science fiction
entertainment, and one of the most popular franchises in television history.

Television series

Star Trek originated as a television
series in 1966. There have been five live action Star Trek series and
an animated series, altogether comprising (as of May 2005) a
total of 725 individual aired episodes (not including the original unaired
pilot) and thirty seasons worth of television.

Star
Trek (1966-1969)

Star Trek debuted on NBC on September 8,
1966. Created by Gene
Roddenberry, starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, and
co-starring James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle
Nichols and Walter Koenig it told the tale of the crew of the starship Enterprise
from the United Federation of Planets and their adventures "to boldly go
where no man has gone before".

The first episode aired, "The Man
Trap," was actually the fifth produced. Originally, Roddenberry created
a pilot entitled "The Cage" with a very different cast, led by
veteran actor Jeffrey Hunter, which was rejected by the three major
television networks of the time. However, the NBC network liked the pilot
enough to commission an unprecedented second pilot, "Where No Man
Has Gone Before," which featured an almost entirely new cast led by Shatner. Only the character of Spock remained, at
Roddenberry's insistence. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was the
third episode aired, while "The Cage" was reworked into a two-part
episode, "The Menagerie."

The last original episode aired on June 3, 1969. The series subsequently became phenomenally
popular in syndication, ultimately spawning the film and television sequels
which followed. It has in recent years become known as Star Trek: The
Original Series, abbreviated as ST:TOS or
TOS, to distinguish it from its sequels.

Star Trek (1973-1974)

The series was aired under the name Star
Trek, but it has become widely known as Star Trek: The Animated Series
(or abbreviated as ST:TAS or TAS). It
was produced by Filmation and ran for two seasons
with a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. It featured most of the
original cast performing the voices for their characters. While the freedom
of animation afforded large alien landscapes and exotic lifeforms,
budget constraints were a major concern and animation quality was poor. A few
episodes are especially notable due to contributions from well-known science
fiction authors. The series is not considered to be canon, which has caused
controversy among some fans. However, the episode "Yesteryear" is
considered a partial exception concerning the events depicted in Spock's
youth. In addition, elements of the animated series have worked their way
into canon, such as Kirk's middle name, "Tiberius," first revealed
in TAS and made official in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country. Star Trek: Enterprise has also
incorporated several TAS concepts into canon.

Star
Trek: Phase II (1978; unproduced)

Star Trek: Phase II was set to air in 1978 as the flagship series of a
proposed Paramount television network, and 12 episode scripts were written
before production was due to begin. This series would have put most of the
original crew back aboard the Enterprise for a second five-year
mission, save for Spock as Leonard Nimoy did not
agree to return; a full-blooded Vulcan named Xon
was planned as a replacement, although it was still hoped that Nimoy would make guest appearances. Sets were constructed
and several minutes of test footage were filmed. However, partly due to the
popularity of the recently-released Star Wars, Paramount decided to make a Star Trek film instead of
a weekly television series. The first script formed the basis of Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
while two others were eventually adapted as episodes of Star Trek: The
Next Generation.

Star
Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)

Star Trek: The Next Generation (also known, colloquially, as The Next
Generation, ST:TNG or TNG) is set
nearly a century later and features a new starship (also named Enterprise) and a new crew. It premiered on September 28,
1987 with the two-hour
pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" and
ran for seven seasons, ending with the final two-part episode "All Good
Things..." on May 29, 1994. The show gained a considerable following during
its initial run. Even during its initial run, the show was produced solely
for syndication.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was the
highest rated of all the Star Trek series, and was the number one syndicated
show during the last few years of its original run. Many fans, both casual
and "hard-core" often treat The Next Generation as a kind of Golden
Age of Star Trek, primarily because of its broad acceptance and viewer base.

Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (ST:DS9 or DS9)
ran for seven seasons and was the first Trek series to be established
without any direct input from Gene Roddenberry. It introduced Avery Brooks as
Commander (and later in the series, Captain) Benjamin Sisko,
the first African-American in the commanding role of a Star Trek
series. It chronicles the events surrounding the space station Deep Space
Nine. In the first episode, the crew discovers the presence of a nearby
stable wormhole which provides immediate travel to and from the distant Gamma
Quadrant. This immediately makes the station an important tactical asset, as
well as a vital center of commerce with the largely-unexplored area of space.
Deep Space Nine sheds some of the utopian themes that embodied the
previous versions of Star Trek, and focuses more on war, religion,
political compromise, and other modern issues. Although its ratings were
never as high as The Next Generation, DS9 remains the most
critically acclaimed of the Trek spin-offs.

Star Trek: Voyager
(1995-2001)

Star Trek: Voyager (also known as ST:VOY,
ST:VGR or VOY) was produced for seven seasons, and is the only Star
Trek series to have had a female captain as a lead character. The series
follows the adventures of the USS Voyager and her crew, joined by Maquis resistance fighters, who have all become stranded
in the Delta Quadrant, seventy-five thousand light-years from Earth. Unless
they can find a shortcut, it will take them
seventy-five years to return to known space. Although Voyager's
ratings were initially solid, they fell dramatically as the show progressed.
It was during this show's run that criticism towards producer Rick Berman
began to gain steam, coinciding with the growth in popularity of online
discussion forums that amplified the message of a vocal group of fans who
felt Berman was no longer welcome as the franchise leader. Under threat of
cancellation the character Seven of Nine was added and the series continued
for several more seasons.

Star Trek: Enterprise
(2001-2005)

Star Trek: Enterprise (named simply Enterprise during its first two seasons, the first few
episodes of its third, and abbreviated as ST:ENT
or ENT) is a prequel to the other Star Trek series. The pilot
episode, "Broken Bow", takes place ten years before the founding of
the Federation, about halfway between the events shown in the movie Star Trek: First Contact and the
original Star Trek series. This series depicts the exploration of
space by the crew of the Earthship Enterprise, a
new NX class starship that is able to go farther and faster than any humans
had previously gone. It presents situations not entirely unfamiliar to Star
Trek fans, but which allow its characters to face them unencumbered by
the experience and rules which have built up over the following years of Trek
history. Ratings for Enterprise were never particularly strong, and – like the original series – fan
support during its second and third seasons helped keep it on the air, but Paramount announced its cancellation during its fourth
season.

Motion
pictures

The U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701,

from films 1-3.

The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-E,

from films 8-10

A total of ten Star Trek movies
have to date been produced by Paramount Pictures.

A common urban myth among fans is that the
even-numbered Star Trek films are superior to the odd-numbered Star
Trek films. This rule of thumb is most easily applicable to the first few
films: Star Trek II and IV are usually at or near the top of
the fan favorites, while I and V are usually at the bottom
(though I has since received quite a bit of positive re-evaluation in
the wake of an acclaimed "Director's Edition" revision released on
DVD). This is not wholly applicable, however; III followed on from the
success of II which continued into IV, and VII (Star Trek:
Generations) is regarded as a firm fan favorite. Another exception is X
(Star Trek: Nemesis), which is the most critically derided of all the
Star Trek feature films, many critics accusing it of attempting to imitate
the plot (and success) of Star Trek II. Despite fetching the lowest
revenue at the box office in Star Trek history, it sold well on its DVD
release in 2003.

As
of March 2005, work has begun on a script as a possible basis for an as-yet
untitled Star Trek XI. Although American releases of the films were no
longer numbered following the sixth film, European releases continued
numbering the films.

An uncertain future for the
franchise

Predictions of the demise of Star Trek
are nothing new. As early as 1993-1994, when Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
failed to generate the high ratings of its predecessor, magazines such as Entertainment
Weekly predicted the end of the franchise. The near-cancellation of Star
Trek: Voyager in the mid-1990s led to more such predictions. Enterprise was widely reported in the media to be on the
verge of cancellation after each of its first three seasons.

However, due to the cancellation of Enterprise and the poor showing of the 2002 film Nemesis, executive producer Rick Berman
has stated that Paramount intends to rest the franchise (film and
television) for at least three years.

Many Trek fans want Berman and the other
executive producer Brannon Braga to be replaced. Babylon
5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, former Star
Trek writer Ronald D. Moore, and current Enterprise executive producer Manny Coto have been suggested
as possible replacements. In an ironic twist to the fan-based efforts to
bring back Trek in the 1960s and 1970s, there are groups of fans who feel
that the concept has run its course and who are actively seeking the end of Star
Trek.

Reruns of The Next Generation and Deep
Space Nine are aired regularly on Spike TV in the United States, while TOS, TNG, and Voyager
air daily in Canada on Space: The Imagination Station, which has also
purchased Enterprise for daily rebroadcasts starting in the fall of
2005.

Cast members and fans have suggested that
even if there are no further Star Trek series or movies, the franchise
may continue in television movies, mini-series, specials, and other forms of
media.

Future sequels to the
original series

There is some desire among fans to bring
back the character of Captain Kirk, as played by William Shatner,
to give him a more dignified end than that shown in Star Trek: Generations.

George Takei and fans have made frequent
attempts to convince the studio to create a series based on Captain Sulu's voyages on the Excelsior, but, despite
support from fans, it has enjoyed little success. Sulu
and the Excelsior originally appeared in the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered
Country as well as in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager
("Flashback") but this did not lead to a new series. Sulu later appeared in the video game Star Trek:
Shattered Universe set in the Mirror, Mirror alternate universe.

Future sequels to The Next
Generation

Next Generation stars Marina Sirtis,
Patrick Stewart, and Jonathan Frakes have suggested
that no more TNG films will be produced; Brent Spiner is also no
longer interested in reprising the character of Data. However, Spiner
portrayed ArikSoong, an
ancestor of the creator of his character Data, in Enterprise's
fourth season, and Sirtis and Frakes
reprised their TNG roles for the Enterprise finale.

Continuation
of Enterprise

In November 2004, Paramount announced that it would be offering the first four
seasons of Enterprise, which aired its final episode on May 13, 2005, in television syndication as well as on DVD in
2005. The first season DVDs were released in United States on May 3rd, 2005.

There is some consensus among Star Trek
fans that the fourth and final season of Enterprise was far superior
and more "Trek-like" to the previous three seasons, and that
continuation of the program under the new writing style would have stood a
chance of acquiring better ratings during a fifth season.

A campaign by Enterprise fans was mounted to have the show aired on the
Sci-Fi Channel, which was rumored to be interested in the show (although TV
Guide reported otherwise). Berman, however, stated that Paramount is not interested in shopping the show around to
other networks.

One campaign, Trek United, attempted to
raise funds to finance a fifth season, raising pledges and cash donations of
more than $3.1 million (U.S.) but its proposal which would have seen a fifth
season jointly produced by Paramount along with Canadian and British
production houses, was rejected by the studio. It has been reported that the
decision to cancel Enterprise after its fourth season may have been made by Paramount as early as the 2002-2003 season, while lead actor
Scott Bakula has gone on record as stating that
management changes at Paramount in 2003-2004 left the Star Trek franchise without strong
support at the studio. In April 2005, he claimed that up until 2003-2004
Paramount had actually intended for the cast of Enterprise to become the focus for the next Star Trek
film.

New
feature film

Rick Berman revealed in 2003 that
preliminary work had begun on an eleventh Star Trek feature film.
Rumors circulated that this film would be a prequel, perhaps titled StarfleetAcademy or Starfleet Command, involving Spock,
Captain Kirk, and Dr. McCoy played by new actors. Other rumors suggested the
film would take place between the events of Enterprise and TOS, perhaps involving the Romulan War and featuring a new cast. However, rumors of
such a prequel have circulated several times throughout the history of the
franchise, shortly after TOS's original
cancellation, and again in the 1990s, both without results.

In late 2004, Paramount indicated that no plans were in place for a new
film, and it was reported that the studio had rejected Berman's idea of a
film featuring a new cast and crew, indicating that it preferred a film
featuring familiar faces.

In late February 2005, Berman told Variety
that pre-production of an eleventh Star Trek film was underway and
that screenwriter Erik Jendresen, producer Jordan Kerner, and former Paramount Television president Kerry McCluggage were attached to the project. Berman said the
film would focus on new characters, rather than any from previous series, and
would take place in a time period before the original Star Trek (as Enterprise did before it). Jendresen
has since confirmed such reports. However, it is still uncertain whether Jendresen's script will be approved by Paramount executives; in January 2005 it was reported by
some websites that the studio had rejected a similar proposal, though Berman
denied this.

In a May 2005 interview for the UKStar Trek Magazine, Berman stated that he
does not expect Trek XI, if it is actually produced, to be released
for several years.

Video games

In 1998, Viacom entered into an agreement
with Activision to produce Star Trek video games. Many games were
released under this agreement, but in 2003, Activision filed a lawsuit
against Viacom stating that they were not holding up to their end of the
bargain because the Star Trek franchise was not as valuable as it once
was. Activision cancelled the contract and sought compensation for losses. In
March 2005, an agreement was reached and all lawsuits were dropped, but the
other terms have been deemed confidential.

In 2004, Perpetual Entertainment announced
plans for an MMORPG based in the Star Trek universe. This will be the
first game of this type to be based on Star Trek. Currently, the game
is tentatively titled Star Trek Online and is expected to be set
roughly ten years after the events of Nemesis.

Novels

Pocket Books, current publishers of
officially licensed fiction based upon all the series (as well as numerous
original Trek series of its own), plans to
continue publishing original novels for the foreseeable future.

However, soon after Enterprise was cancelled, the company announced that it was
halving the number of Star Trek novels it would be publishing, down to
only one mass-market paperback per month, plus several trade paperbacks and hardcovers throughout the year. Although book line
editors stressed that the decision to reduce the number of books was made a
year earlier and was not related to popularity/ratings problems within the
franchise, the announcement was seen by some as another indication that the Star
Trek franchise is on the wane.

Despite this, however, the company
maintains that it has ambitious plans for the line, including (in May 2005)
the confirmation that an EnterpriseRelaunch series of
novels is in the planning stages.